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The Root 


OF THE 

Temperance Question 


FROM A KINDERGARTEN STANDPOINT. 



ELIZABETH HARRISON. 

Principal of the Chicago Kindergarten Training School. 


PRESENTED TO THE 


Of 

copyright Sty 

IV 231889 

v -4SHiNGTON* 


NATIONAL WOMAN’S CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE UNION. 


CHICAGO, NOVEMBER 11th, 1889. 


































VAV5 I3S 


The Temperance Question is the question of the hour. 


Its problems are many and complicated. 


Froebel and his Kindergarten, when understood, will 
solve these problems. 


“ RIGHT AND WRONG TRAINING 
OF THE SENSES.” 


There is perhaps no instinct of the child more im¬ 
portant and yet less guarded than the exercise of its 
senses. The baby begins this life-work as soon 
as its eyes can fix themselves on any point in space — 
as soon as its tiny hand can grasp any object of the 
material world. 

The training of the inner being begins at the same 
time, by means of the impressions conveyed through 
these avenues of the senses to the young brain. 

* * * * * * * 

The world at large has, in a vague sort of a way, ac¬ 

knowledged a distinction between the higher and lower 
senses in that it has long trained the eye, and to some 
extent the ear, and now is struggling to get into the 
school curriculum a systematized training of the sense 
of touch. And yet the misdirection of the lower 
senses is far more dangerous — not only because 
they do not aid directly in the upbuilding of 
the intellect, but they have more direct effect 
upon the will of the child. Any child turns quicker 
from a bad odor than from a bad picture, comes sooner 
to get a sweet-meat than to hear some pleasing sound. 
Even with most adults is it the same. Our sympathies 

3 



4 


are much sooner aroused by a tale of physical suffer¬ 
ing than by one of demoralizing surroundings. 

Gluttony is the vice of childhood. The sense of 
taste is the first developed and the strongest through¬ 
out the early years of life. Notwithstanding these facts, 
the two lower senses of taste and smell have been left 
almost entirely to the hap-hazard education of circum¬ 
stances. And sad indeed have been the results. As 
we look abroad over the world what do we perceive as 
the chief cause of the wrecks and ruins we see around 
us, of the wretchedness and misery which lie about 
us? Why have we on every hand such dwarfed and 
stunted characters ? For what reason do crimes, too 
hideous to be mentioned in polite society, poison our 
moral atmosphere until our great cities become fatal 
to half the young men and women who come to them ? 
Why do our clergy and other reformers have to labor 
so hard to attract the hearts of men to what is in itself 
glorious and beautiful ? 

Is it not, in a majority of cases, because men and women 
have not learned to subordinate the gratification of physi¬ 
cal appetite to rational ends. You see it in every phase 
of society; from the rich and favored dame, whom 
soft chairs and tempered lights and luxurious surround¬ 
ings have so enervated that she is blind to the sight of 
misery and deaf to the cry of despair, on down through 
the grades where we find the luxuries of the table the 
only luxuries indulged in, and “ plain living and high 
thinking ” the exception, still farther down from these 
respectable phases of self-indulgence to the poor drunk¬ 
ard who will sacrifice all comforts of the home, all peace 
of family life for the gratification of his insatiable thirst. 


5 


still farther down to the pitiable wretch who sells her 
soul that her body may live. 

Do not their lives, all of them, contradict that sig¬ 
nificant question of the Son of God ? “ Is not the 

body more than the raiment ?” “ Is not the life more 

than the meat ? ” 

Let us turn from this distressing picture to the sci¬ 
entific investigation of the senses. We find that the 
sense of taste has two offices, ist. That of relish, or 
the producing of certain pleasant sensations in the 
mouth or stomach, for the two are one for all practical 
purposes, and second, the discriminating between the 
good and bad, wholesome and unwholesome food, which 
is taste proper. The former is the gratification of the 
sense for the sake of the sensation, and leads through 
over-indulgence directly into gluttony, which, in its 
turn, leads directly into sensuality. Whereas the lat¬ 
ter use of this organ of sensation leads to discrimina¬ 
tion, which discrimination produces wholesome re¬ 
straint upon undue eating, this restraint engendering 
self-control, which makes the moral will power supreme 
over the bodily appetite —man’s greatest safe-guard in 
the hour of temptation. In the world of nature we 
see that the rank vegetation needs to be pruned and 
checked if it is to give to man its best fruits. In his¬ 
tory not until a nation begins to send far and wide for 
delicacies and condiments for its markets and tables 
does it become a voluptuous and sensual nation. When 
we speak of “ The degenerate days of Rome ” do not 
pictures of their over-loaded tables rise before the 
mind’s eye ? 

We do not need to turn to other times and other 


6 


places for illustrations of this truth; who are the “high 
livers ? ” As a rule are they not sensualists also ? 

The prophets and seers of the world have always 
seen the close connection between the feeding of the 
body and its control or non-control of the sensual ap¬ 
petites. Plato long ago, in his ideal Republic, would 
have banished all books which contained descriptions 
of the mere pleasures of food, drink and love. Class¬ 
ing, as a mutter of course, the three under one head, 
what an enormous amount of so-called literature 
would have to be swept out of the libraries of to-day 
were that mandate sent forth! 

Dante, with that marvelous vision of his which 
seemed to see through all disguises and all forms of 
sin back to the causes of the same, places gluttony and 
sensuality in the same circle of the Inferno. At least 
two great branches of the Christian church, the Ro¬ 
man Catholic and the Protestant Episcopal, have real¬ 
ized the moral value of placing the appetites under 
the control of the will in their establishment and main¬ 
tenance of the season of Lent. Let him who would 
scoff at the observance of this season of restraint try 
for six weeks to go without his favorite article of food 
and realize for himself the amount of will power it re¬ 
quires. 

To me the story of Daniel derives its significance 
not so much from the fearless courage with which that 
Great Heart xJared death in the lion’s den, as from the 
fact that as a child he had moral control enough to 
turn from the King’s sumptuous table and eat the sim¬ 
ple pulse and drink pure water. Such self-control 
must produce the courage and manhood which will die 


7 


for a principle. So in telling this story, ever loved by 
childhood, we always emphasize the earlier struggle 
and victory rather than the latter. The perfect char¬ 
acter is the character with the perfectly controlled will. 

Therefore, the heroes of the kindergarten stories are 
mightier than they who have taken a city, for they 
have conquered themselves. 

The greatest battles of the world, are the battles 
which are fought within the human breast. And, 
alas, the greatest defeats are there also! 

“ That a child inherits certain likes and dislikes in 
the matter of food can not be questioned, but that does 
not in the least forbid the training of the child’s taste 
towards that which is healthful and upbuilding, it 
merely adds an element to be considered in the 
training.” 

Hear what a gifted writer of our own nation has 
said. Horace Bushnell, in his book called “ Christian 
Nurture” utters these impressive words. “ The child 
is taken when his training begins in a state of natural¬ 
ness as respects all the bodily tastes and tempers, and 
the endeavor should be to keep him in that key, to let 
no stimulation of excess, or delicacy disturb the sim¬ 
plicity of nature, and no sensual pleasure in the name 
of food become a want or expectation of his appetite. 
Any artificial appetite begun is the beginning of dis¬ 
temper, disease, and a general disturbance of natural 
proportion. Intemperance ! The woes of intemperate 
drink ! how dismal the story, when it is told ; how 
dreadful the picture when we look upon it. From 
what do the father and mother recoil with a greater 
and more total horror of feeling, than the possibility 


8 


that their child is to be a drunkard ? Little do they 
remember that he can be, even before he has much as 
tasted the cup ; and that they themselves can make 
him so, virtually without meaning it, even before he 
has gotten his language. Nine-tenths of the intem¬ 
perate drinking begins, not in grief and destitution, 
as we so often hear, but in vicious feeding. Here the 
scale and order of simplicity is first broken, and then 
what shall a distempered or distemperate life run to, 
more certainly than what is intemperate ? False feed¬ 
ing genders false appetite, and when the soul is 
burning all through in the fires of false appetite, what 
is that but a universal uneasiness ? And what will 
this uneasiness more naturally do than partake itself 
to the pleasure and excitement of drink ? ” Much 
more which is helpful to the mother is given in the 
chapter entitled, “Physical Nurture to be a means 
of Grace.” 

Froebel, whose eagle eye nothing which concerns the 
child seemed to escape, saw this danger, and in his 
“ Education of man ” says: “ In these years of child¬ 
hood, the child’s food is a matter of very great import¬ 
ance, not only at the time, for the child may by its 
food be made indolent or active, sluggish or mobile, 
dull or bright, inert or vigorous, but, indeed, for his 
entire future life. For impressions, inclinations, appe¬ 
tites, which the child may have derived from his food, 
the turn it may have given to his senses and even to 
hie life, as a whole, can only with difficulty be set aside, 
even when the age of self-dependence has been reach¬ 
ed. They are one with his whole physical life, and 
herefore intimately connected with his spiritual life 


9 


and again parents and nurses should ever remember, 
as underlying every precept in this direction, the fol¬ 
lowing general principle, that simplicity and frugality 
in food and in other physical needs during the years 
of childhood enhance man’s power of attaining happi¬ 
ness and Vigor—true creativeness in every respect. 
Who has not noticed in children, overstimulated by 
spices and excesses of food, appetites of a very low 
order, from‘which they can never again be freed—ap¬ 
petites which, even when they seem to have been sup¬ 
pressed, only slumber, and in times of opportunity 
return with greater power, threatening to rob man of 
all his dignity and to force him away from his duty.” 

Then comes almost with an audible sigh these 
words—“ It is by far easier than we think to promote 
and establish the/welfare of mankind. All the means 
are simple and at hand, yet we see them not. You 
see them perhaps, but do not notice them. In their 
simplicity, availability, and nearness, they seem too 
insignificant, and we despise them. We seek help 
from afar, although help is only in and through our¬ 
selves. Hence, at a later period half or all our accu¬ 
mulated wealth can not procure for our children what 
greater insight and keener vision discer?i as their greatest 
good . This they must miss, or enjoy but partially or 
scantily. It might have been theirs without effort, as 
it were, had we in their childhood attended to it but 
a little more ; indeed it would have been theirs in full 
measure, had we expended very much less for their 
physical comfort.” Then he exclaims in ringing 
tones, as the enormous significance of the subject 
grows upon him. “ Would that to each young, newly 


married couple, there could be shown in all its* vivid¬ 
ness, only one of the sad experiences and observations 
in its small and seemingly insignificant beginnings, 
and in its incalculable consequences that tend utterly 
to destroy all the good of after education.” 

Then comes the pointing out of the way' to avoid 
the sad consequences which he so laments “ And here 
it is easy to avoid the wrong , and to find the right. 
Always let the food be simply for nourishment—never 
more, never less. Never should food be taken for its 
own sake, but for the sake of promoting bodily and 
mental activity. Still less should the peculiarities of 
food, its taste or delicacy, ever become an object in 
themselves, but only a means to make it good, pure, 
wholesome nourishment; else in both cases the food 
destroys health. Let the food of the child be as 
simple as the circumstances in which the child lives 
can afford, and let it be given in proportion to his 
bodily and mental activity.” 

There is no one among us who can riot recall pic¬ 
tures of some young mothers putting some spoonful of 
sweet to her baby’s mouth, and persuading that un¬ 
willing little one to take the unaccustomed food, say¬ 
ing with coaxing tone such words of encouragement 
as “ So good, so good," teaching the child to dwell 
upon and value the relish side of his food. 

Not long ago I had occasion to take a long ride on 
a street car—my attention was soon attracted to a 
placid mother with her year old child in her arms. 
The little one was in quiet wonder looking out on the 
great, new world about him, with its myriads of mov¬ 
ing objects. Here was a picture of serene content- 


ment of both mother and child. Soon, however, the 
mother slipped her hand into her pocket and drew 
forth a small paper bag, out of which she took a piece 
of candy and put it into her mouth ; then fearing, I 
suppose, that this might be selfish, she took out an¬ 
other piece and popped it into the infant’s mouth. 
The child resented the intrusion upon its meditations 
by ejecting the proffered sweet. The mother was not 
to be defeated in her generosity. She put it back into 
the child’s mouth and held it there until the little one 
began to suck it of its own accord. This operation 
was repeated a number of times, about every third 
piece of candy being put into the child’s mouth. 
Once or twice the small recipient turned its head 
away, but was coaxed back by the cooing voice of the 
mother saying, “take it, darling.' See mamma likes 
candy,” illustrating the remark by eating a piece and 
giving every sign of relish during the operation. The 
child was soon won over, and began to reach out its 
hands for more. After the unwholesome relish had 
accumulated to a sufficient extent in the delicate little 
stomach to make the child physically uncomfortable,, 
she began to show a restless spirit or desire to move 
about unnecessarily. The mother grew impatient,, 
which only increased the child’s uneasiness. Finally 
she shook it saying, “ I don’t see what in the world is 
the matter with you. You are a bad, troublesome 
little thing! ” At this, the unjustly accused little 
victim 'set up a lusty yell, and the mother in a few 
moments left the car in great confusion and with a 
very red face, wondering, no doubt, from which one of 


I 2 


its father’s relatives the child inherited such a disa¬ 
greeable disposition. 

I need not multiply my illustrations, they are too 
numerous to need preserving. “ But,” exclaimed one 
mother to me, “ do you mean to say that you would 
not give any confectionery to a child ? I think candy 
is the prerogative of every child. Why, I think it is a 
crime to take it away from them ! ” “ I think,” was 

my reply, “ that a healthy body and strong moral will 
power is the prerogative of every child, and it is a 
crime to take them away' from him.” “ But,” she 
added in an annoyed tone, “ I do love candy so my¬ 
self, and I can’t eat it before my child and not give 
her a part of it.”-! 

By this I do not^ mean that all sweets must be 
banished from the nursery or the table, the child 
would thus be deprived of the lesson in voluntary 
self-control, but they should be given as relishes 
only, after a wholesome meal, letting the child under¬ 
stand that it adds little or nothing to his up-building 
and must, therefore, be taken sparingly. 

Froebel suggests to the mother that she playfully 
lead her child’s thoughts to discrimination of different 
kinds of food and the value of the same,.by some such 
little song and play as, “ The Tasting Song,” in that 
wonderful book of his, for mothers. “ Who does not 
know,” says he, “ and rejoice that you, dear mother, 
can carry on everything as a game with your child, 
and can dress up for him the most important things 
of life in charming play.” 

It is not supposed that any mother will feel herself . 
compelled to use the rather crude rhyme, given in 



3 


the‘mother book,’but it contains the needed hint 
of playfully guiding the child's attention to the after¬ 
effects of different kinds of food. Froebel says: 
“This is the way in which you, mother, try to foster, 
develop and improve each sense, playfully and gaily, 
but especially the sense of taste. What is more 
important, mother, for your child, than the improve- 
.ment of the senses, especially the improvement of 
the sense of Taste, in its transfered moral meaning, 
as well.” Farther on in the same earnest talk with the 
mother (see page 136, “ Mother Songs ”), he tells her 
that by such exercises of her child’s senses does she 
teach him gradually to judge of the inner essence of 
things by their appearance. Thus it is not necessary 
for him to actually indulge in them, claiming that 
moral as well as physical things show their real nature 
to the observing eye. Thus if a child is trained to 
know the wholesomeness or unwholesomeness of food 
by its results, or after effects, he will the readier judge 
of the nature of a pleasure, of a companion, of a book, 
of a line of conduct, by its after effects; and it is not, 
therefore, necessary that he “ sow his wild oats, or” 
“ see the world,” in the pitiable sense in which that term 
is used, in order that he may know life. His rational 
judgment can teach him what, oftentimes, sad, bitter, 
deforming experiences tell him, alas ! too late to 
avoid. He need not be a Faust to solve the Faust 
problem. In the motto to the mother, Froebel says : 

“ Ever through the senses Nature woos the child, 

Thou canst help him comprehend her lessons mild.” 

In other words, that Nature , God's design , is striving 


14 


to educate your child spiritually , and that you can help do 
this through the careful physical training of your child. 

“ By the senses is the inner door unsealed, 

Where the spirit glows in light revealed.” 

You can see how definite Froebel’s convictions are 
on this subject. That the soul, the Divine element in 
each child, is sealed up, as it were, when he first comes 
into the world, and is gradually awakened and 
strengthened by the impressions which come to it 
by means of the senses from the outside world ; that 
the physical and spiritual growth of the child go for- 
ward simultaneously, the one by means of the other. 
He especially charges the mother to teach her child 
to observe and avoid things which are unripe. “ Make 
your child notice not only the fixed steps of develop¬ 
ment from the unripe to the ripe, but above all that to 
use what is unripe is contrary to Nature in all rela¬ 
tions and conditions of life, and often works, in its 
turn, injuriously on life, on physical but no less on 
intellectual and social life,” and as a closing word he 
exclaims, “ If you do so you will be really, as a mother, 
one of the greatest benefactors of the human race.” 

That the opinions and consequently the actions of 
children are easily influenced through play, soon be¬ 
comes evident to any one who has ever played much 
with children. One morning, while giving a lesson 
with the building blocks, we made an oblong form, 
which I asked one of the children to name. “ It is a 
table — a breakfast table.” “Let’s play they are all 
breakfast tables,” said I, “ and I will come around and 
visit each one and see what the little children have to 


i5 


eat. What is on your table, Helen ? ” “ Oh ! ” ex¬ 

claimed she, in eager delight, “ my children have ice¬ 
cream and cake and soda-water and — “ Oh, dear ! 

oh, dear ! ” cried I, holding up my hands; “ poor little 
things. Just think of their having such a thoughtless 
mamma, who didn’t know how to give them good, 
wholesome food for their breakfast! How can they 
ever grow strong and big on such stuff as that ? What is 
on your table, Frank ? ” “ My children have bread and 
butter, oatmeal and cream, and baked potatoes,” said 
the discreet young father. “ Ah ! ” said I, in a tone of 
intense satisfaction, “ now here is a sensible mamma, 
who knows how to take care of her children ! ” “ Oh ! ,f 
broke in little Helen, “my children’s mamma came 
into the room, and when she saw what they were eat¬ 
ing she jerked the ice-cream off the table.” The sig¬ 
nificant gesture, which accompanied the emphatic tone, 
told of the sudden revolution which had taken place 
in the child’s mind as to right kinds of food for care¬ 
fully reared children. 

In a thousand such ways can children be influenced 
in play to form judgments concerning lines of con¬ 
duct which will decide them when the real deed is to 
be enacted. I know of the Kindergarten-trained five 
year old son of a millionaire who refused spiced pickles 
when they were passed to him at table. “ Why, my son,” 
said his father, “ do you not want some pickle ? It is 
very nice.” “ No,” replied the boy, “ I don’t see any 
use in eating spiced pickle. It don’t help to make me 
stronger ; my teacher says it don’t.” If this kind 
of training can be carried out, such a boy will grow 
into the young man, who, when tempted, can easily 


i6 


say, “ No. I don’t see any use in that. It does not 
make a man stronger or better.” 

That children are easily trained to prefer whole¬ 
some to unwholesome food, even when all the 
home influences are against the training, almost 
any Kindergartner can tell you. I had charge one 
year of a class of children, who were indulged in 
almost every respect in their home life. On one 
occasion an injudicious mother sent to the Kin¬ 
dergarten a very large birthday cake, richly orna¬ 
mented with candied fruits and other sweets. In 
cutting the cake, I quite incidentally said : “We do 
not want to upset any of our stomachs with these 
sweets, so we will just lay them aside,” suiting the ac¬ 
tion to the word. After each child had eaten a good 
sized slice of the cake (a privilege always allowed on 
birthday) there was at least one-third of the cake left. 
Not a child out of the twenty asked for a second piece 
of the cake nor for a bit of the confectionery. This was 
not because they were in anyway suppressed or afraid 
to make their wants known ; as they had almost abso¬ 
lute freedom and were accustomed to ask for any 
thing they desired. It was simply that, through pre¬ 
vious plays and talks and stories, they had learned that I 
did not approve of such things for children; so, when 
with me, they did not either. Thus, easily and almost 
imperceptibly, is a little child moulded. The mother 
who holds herself responsible for what her child shall 
wear—and what mother does not ? and yet does not 
feel that she is answerable for what he shall eat, 
simply shows that she regards his outer appearance as 


!7 


a more important matter than his health of body or 
moral strength. 

The danger of wrong training lies not alone in the 
indulgence of the sense of taste. Testimony is not 
wanting of the evil effects of the cultivation of the 
relish side of the other senses also. After giving a 
lesson on this subject to a large class in Chicago, a 
stranger walked up to me and introduced herself as 
having formerly been a missionary to the Sandwich 
Islands. “ This lesson has explained to me,” said 
she, “ a custom among the Sandwich Islanders which 
I never before understood. When the natives begin 
their religious rites and ceremonies, which, you know, 
are very licentious, the women are in the habit of deck¬ 
ing themselves with wreaths of orange blossoms and 
other flowers, which have a strongly agreeable scent, 
until the air is heavy with the odor.” 

“Do you not know who the over-perfumed women 
of our own land are ?” asked I. “ And yet I know 
scores of mothers who deliberately train their children 
to revel in excessive indulgence in perfumery.” 

Mr. Wm. Tomlins, a man who has almost regene¬ 
rated the musical world for children, once said, in a talk 
on musical education : “ If music ends only in fitting 
us to enjoy it ourselves, it becomes selfishly enervat¬ 
ing, and this reacts on the musical tone.” Therefore, he 
has long made a habit of teaching the hundreds of 
children who come under his instruction to sing 
sweetly and to enunciate clearly, that they may be 
worthy of singing at this or that concert for the bene¬ 
fit of some grand charity. The dissipation which is 


i8 

seen in the lives of so many of this most ennobling 
profession is thus easily explained. 

Nor does this far-reaching thought stop with the 
right and wrong training of the senses. The mother 
who praises her child’s curls or rosy cheeks rather 
than the child’s actions or inner motives, is develop¬ 
ing the relish side of character—placing beauty of 
appearance over and above beauty of conduct. The 
father who takes his boy to the circus and, passing by 
the menagerie and acrobat’s skill, teaches the boy to 
-enjoy the clown and like parts of the exhibition, 
is leading to the development of the relish side of 
amusement, and is training the child to regard excite¬ 
ment and recreation as necessarily one and the same 
thing. 

Fashionable parties for children, those abominations 
upon the face of the earth, are but seasoned condi¬ 
ments of that most wholesome food for the young soul, 
social contact with its peers. That any thing so 
simple, so sweet, so holy, and so necessary for right 
.growth as the commingling of little children in play and 
work with those of their own age and ability, should 
be twisted and turned into such an artificial thing as a 
fashionable party, seems to the real lover of childhood 
as incredible, save for the sad fact that it is. 

Even our Sunday Schools, with their prizes and ex¬ 
hibitions and sensational programs, are not exempt 
from the crime. I have seen the holy Easter festival 
so celebrated by Sunday Schools that, as far as its 
effects upon the younger children were concerned, 
they might each one have been given a glass of intoxi- 


eating liquor, so upset \ 
their brains, so demorali 

Need I speak of the r 
ren ? John 'Rudkin, the 
claims that no ornament^ o eautli ^ 
apparent . . 

T^'^tfjk'ish, perhaps, whose demoralizing influence is 
begu xmlg to be suspected, is that of highly seasoned 
literature, if we may call such writing by the name of 
that which stands for all that is best of the thoughts 
and experiences of the human race. Mothers and 
teachers can not too earnestly sift what the children, 
given into their charge, shall read. There are, aside 
from the text books needed in their school work, 
some few great books which have stood the test of 
time and critic. Teach your children to understand 
and to love these. Above all, as a means of culture, 
as well as a means of inspiration and a guide to con¬ 
duct, would I recommend that book of books, the 
Bible, to be the constant companion of mother and 
child. 

Of course, there is the minor danger into which 
some may fall, of teaching the child too great dis¬ 
crimination, until he becomes an epicure. The child 
who pushes away his oat meal because it has milk on 
it instead of cream, is in a fair way to grow into the 
man who will push away the mass of humanity because 
they are so unwashed. God pity him if he does ! 

I once knew of a call which came from a large and 
needy district to a young woman who longed with all 
her heart to be of use in the world. “ But,” said she 
to me, “ I can not possibly go; the salary is only seven 


ild not even pay for the 
So she continued to live 

, beautiful woman, whose 
.^yond her tinJ.es, to whom there came 
a giand opportunity to advance" s gre^^cause. “I 
can not,” she said despairingly, “ do without V ^ina 

and cut glass, the disease of luxury has fast hold'-upon 
me.” “ So train your child,” says Emerson, “ that at the 
age of thirty or forty he shall not have to say, ‘ This 
great thing could I do, but for the lack of tools ! * 
Far more likely is he to say, ‘ This great thing could I 
do, but for the weight of clothes ! ’ ” 



